Isha Foundation’s founder and spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev faced flak by Madras High Court during a recent proceeding. The HC questioned the double standards on why he’s urging women to shave their heads, renounce worldly pleasures, and live like ascetics, while his own daughters seem to have opted for a more traditional route of marriage.
A bench of justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam was reportedly hearing a plea by a retired professor alleging that his two daughters who were well-educated had been ‘brainwashed’ into permanently joining and staying at the Isha Yoga Centre.
S. Kamaraj, a former professor at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, has filed a petition requesting the court to summon his daughters for an in-person appearance.
“We want to know why a person who had given his daughter in marriage and made her settle well in life is encouraging the daughters of others to tonsure their heads and live the life of a hermitess. That is the doubt,” Bar and Bench quoted the judges’ oral statement.
According to reports, both women, aged 42 and 39, appeared before the court on Monday, affirming that they are staying at the Isha Foundation of their own free will and are not being held against their wishes. This mirrors previous testimonies the women provided in the ongoing decade-old case, which stems from claims made by their parents, alleging that their lives had been turned into ‘hell’ since the women ‘abandoned’ them.
Ordering a deeper probe in the matter, the court asked the cops to compile a list of all cases linked to the Isha Foundation.
Meanwhile the Isha Foundation has issued a stetement asserting that women voluntarily choose to stay. “We believe that adult individuals have the freedom and wisdom to choose their paths. We do not impose marriage or monkhood, as these are personal choices. The Isha Yoga Centre accommodates thousands who are not monks, alongside a few who have embraced Brahmacharya or monkhood,” the statement read.
It also stated that it has only one ongoing police case, while another has been stayed by the court.